


Spoils of War

by BlueMonkey



Category: Vikings (TV), Warcraft (2016)
Genre: Khadgar is a Pict, M/M, Mentions of religion, captive Khadgar, historical setting, that thing that needed to be written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-08-12 04:01:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7919758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueMonkey/pseuds/BlueMonkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Taken back north as the only survivor from a raid on his village, Khadgar falls into a new life that is unlike anything he could have expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spoils of War

**Author's Note:**

> The LionTrust chat is to blame. Wholly. I love you guys.
> 
> Thank you [SebastianStan](http://archiveofourown.org/users/SebastianStan) for the fast beta!

The rope around his neck is a formality.

Loose and draped over his shoulders, Khadgar shivers when a new shirt slides up his bare skin. The fabric is soft and light, woven from wool like his old garments, but made with a skill that doesn't fit with his preconception of the violent foreign culture on the other side of these four walls.

“I could have used my old ones,” he says.

“Your old ones smell.”

And so they do. Khadgar regards the discarded pile in the corner. His skin is still wet, the air cool but not enough to chill him. The man's breath sends a pattern of goosebumps across his skin; he tries not to show it. “I can do it myself.”

“I am sure you can,” says the man—Ragnar. He hangs the linen off Khadgar's shoulders, tucks the coiled rope under it, and moves closer to Khadgar's sitting form to close the first loop.

Ragnar studies him. Like all of his questions, every reaction he gets out of Khadgar is mapped and committed to memory. Except these ones are unspoken. And he never falls out of line.

Ragnar is offering. He is tempting. He never takes; it is a sport for him to get others where he wants them by making them think it is their decision. Khadgar sees through all of that. He does not care, experimentally leaning his weight back until it rests against the other man's chest.

The clothes are too foreign, too nice. Ragnar may feel good on his skin, but the strange weave does not.

He tugs it down.

 

_Chaos erupts in the settlement and wakes him from his slumber. It is too early, the sun only barely up above the line of the trees, when he opens his eyes. The screams confuses him for a minute; the smell of smoke does not._

_He runs outside, only to want to crawl back and hide himself in the deepest recess of the monastery. But the small building offers no refuge, as it is made of wood like the already burning farms around it. The idyllic light that falls through the windows in beams, lighting motes of dust in a landscape that Khadgar loves to weave his hands through, is an irony._

_He backs away until his spine touches the great painting of the angelic host, but the screams and shouts continue, and Khadgar has never been a man of the church anyway, his own roots far darker and far older; the hope and comfort for those of the faith hopelessly elude him._

_Smoke slithers through the cracks. He has to go._

_The moment he bursts through the door, Khadgar is prepared to give a fight. He berates himself for not having done so sooner; more people may survive if not for his cowardice. He mutters a few syllables, the language of which no of man in the village knows. Light glows in his eyes, and energy weaves around his fingers._

_The first blast hits a group of four and floors three; the last one stares at him in horror. Khadgar has never seen men like him. They are savages—animals. The man's shield hangs from his hand, but the axe in his right hand is red with blood._

_He readies another spell. Desperate to scare them away, his words wrap around syllables of power. The savages won't take more from him. These were his friends. They have treated him like family. They—_

_A hand covers his mouth and roughly pulls him back. There is a sharp and sudden pain at the back of his head. Then, everything goes black._

 

Hot breath skims Khadgar's neck. Ever asking for his permission, Ragnar's fingertips rest against his waist like ghosts while his chin leans on Khadgar's shoulder.

This is new, Khadgar thinks. He is being seduced. For a man who is lesser than a servant, Ragnar covets him like a prince. Khadgar may have earned himself his attention with his magic; what is passing now is decidedly different in nature. He can practically sense the raw physical need that leads Ragnar's touch. The stranger who has claimed him as his property yearns now for Khadgar's free choice as well.

Khadgar is powerless to keep it from him. “Do what you will,” he whispers.

And their closeness becomes impossibly closer. Their chests rise and fall in discord until one sets the pace and the other adheres. Neither of them can say who starts it. There are other things to concern themselves with, far more demanding things. Khadgar trembles as a mouth grazes his neck.

And then suddenly it becomes real. He panicks. _What am I doing?_ He is supposed to think about getting out of here. Freedom is more important than the promise of a night offered. What will he have in the morning, if his life at all? It is not about what is happening, he realises. It is what might not.

“Have you lain with a man before?” asks Ragnar.

Khadgar shakes his head.

“Neither have I.”

“So you experiment with the spoils of war before you go back to your wife?” Khadgar asks. His head has tipped back, his eyes closed. There is no bite to his words. He knows his place.

Ragnar laughs. “Something like that.” And he leaves it at that. There is little he does not say with the way he draws Khadgar back by the rope around his neck and curls his other in a fist around Khadgar's naked cock with a sigh. “Tell me what you want.”

“Does it matter?” Khadgar asks in return. He tips his head sideways and allows the man to take. It is sinful and it is blissful; as soon as Khadgar gives up the fight to keep his hips still, the man knows he has won.

 

_He is helpless._

_There is a rope around his neck. His mouth is gagged, his hands bound to a wooden support behind his back. If he struggles, he will only tighten that hold. Khadgar still breathes hard._

_This world is new to him. They had been on the seas for weeks. Far from home, he has no hope of going back, or even knowing the way. But several of the men speak his language. Despite their savagery, they must not be complete brutes. They have taunted him with the spoils of their conquest; relics taken from his home, and stories that brag about how they rounded up the last of the survivors and took their lives._

_Khadgar is the only one who lives._

_A man watches him from opposite the room. He does not speak, but he tilts his head and observes him like a hawk. Sometimes, he comes closer. Once or twice he tips Khadgar's head up to inspect his property. Khadgar's eyes are the stranger's main focus._

_“Will you kill me?” Khadgar tries to ask. It comes out muffled, incomprehensible. He is shaking, and he does not want to know the answer, but it is so very likely. The man is toying with him. This is a grand joke on his expense, and it will end once as soon as Khadgar loses the stranger's interest. There are so many things he can do, if only he could speak._

_“What are you?” the man suddenly asks. He kneels down opposite him. There is intelligence behind his piercing eyes. He is, Khadgar realises, trying to make sense of him. “You have a power I have not seen before. It is not seidhr. Tell me, have you come from the gods?”_

_Khadgar tries to get a sound out around his gag._

_“Yes or no?”_

_Tears form around his eyes when he shakes his head._

_“But is it magic?” demands the stranger. And why does he not just get on with it? The question itself is laughable. Khadgar wants to reply that yes, it is magic, but it is not as simple as that. ‘Magic' is a word that barely scratches the surface. Khadgar uses energy and attunes himself to the elements, and innate though it is, it has taken him years to even come close to creating flame. Years, he might add, that have passed in secret; the God that adopted him does not believe in men holding power for themselves. So he shrugs. Nods. Shakes his head. And readies himself for inevitable death._

 

His hands have been untied hours ago. Unbound and ungagged, Khadgar braces himself against the post in the middle of the room as Ragnar draws him in his lap. Calloused hands worship him. His skin, once plump and unmarred, is now taut and responds to every touch.

The tunic that was given to him lies on the floor next to his old robes. He is dressed in nothing, and the man who sits under him, pumping him as he kisses the back of his neck, still wears what he came in with. “Will you only touch me?” Khadgar asks him in a bold move. He is out of breath enough without the rope tugging against his throat. “Where I come from, we do things differently.”

Khadgar has given up the pretense that he doesn't want this. He does. Ragnar has not pretended once, so why should he? “I will have you,” the rough voice promises. To him, Khadgar, in all his youthful scholarly appearance, is the most exquisite creature he has chanced to lay his eyes on. “Tell me how you do things.”

And Khadgar flushes. His big mouth has run ahead of him, for it is not something he knows how to talk about.

“Do your people do this?” A hand splayed against his back pushes him forward, before it slips between them and starts drawing circles against his entrance. A finger pushes in.

Khadgar gasps at the intrusion. It is dry, bordering on painful, and he is wholly unprepared. “Christian men don't sleep with each other,” he manages to bring out. “Use oil.”

“You've not earned the use of oil.”

“Please,” Khadgar whimpers. His body is leaning against the pole, crumpled at the base, while Ragnar draws in and out of him. He moves slowly and with consideration, but still never quite touching upon the edge of pleasure. All his dignity is lost under the hands of this man. “You murdered my people. If you want to talk about earning things, you've never earned the right to have me in the first place, but I am here, am I not?”

 

_Ragnar, as the man has introduced himself, spends hours in Khadgar's company. He talks to himself or to him. They have learned to communicate with nods and shakes. Khadgar isn't sure why the man goes to such lengths, but he is glad for the distraction._

_He has not seen the sun for days. Ragnar pushes food in his direction and expects him to eat it while still gagged. Khadgar has spent a day with a nearly rotting gag before finally the man too understood that this could not continue. And so his gag is taken out, and food pushed into his mouth, immediately followed by a large hand muffling him. He chews with the man's palm against his mouth. It is, well, it is undignified._

_“You,” Ragnar says one day while he feeds him, “do you have a name?”_

_He lifts the hand only enough for Khadgar to speak. Khadgar's raw lips chafe against the stranger's palm as his voice croaks and he gives his name._

_“Khadgar,” repeats the savage man. “What does it mean?”_

_“Trust,” mutters Khadgar, before the hand again covers his mouth. “Can you not—” Of course, that too comes out incomprehensible. He huffs and looks down, then back up. Take it off, he means to say. He is tired of being in this in-between. They won't kill him, but they won't put him to good use either. He doesn't have to work for his meals. It is an easier life than his old one at the monastery, but there is something wrong about it._

_Ragnar laughs. The sound is deep and echoes; it is also strangely light. Dangerous in ways that have nothing to do with mortal peril. “If I take my hand away, will you promise not to use your magic on me? It will not end well for you if you do.”_

_Tied to the pillar with a rope loosely around his neck, Khadgar nods. What other choice does he have?_

_The pressure lessens. Tentatively, Ragnar eases himself back, until his hand is fully off him. Khadgar tastes fresh air on his tongue. He marvels at the sensation. Knowing that his response is being watched with great curiosity does not change how he opens himself back up to life itself. He feels free. Boundless. There is so much he can do._

_“There,” says Ragnar, “that wasn't so bad.”_

_Khadgar fixes him a glare. Then he opens his mouth. Out tumble the first components to the fastest spell he can think of. His eyes blaze blue, his magic eager to be released like a caged spirit. He will not be contained. He is done being chained to a post like cattle. This man is not going to be the one who breaks him._

_A circle comes into being around his hands. Almost—almost—_

_Ragnar pushes him on his back and covers his mouth at once. The pressure is vicious, the power of the man who pins him to the floor undeniable. He stares at Khadgar long and hard._

_This is it, he thinks, he has fumbled his only chance. He will die and be despoiled; he can only hope that it is in that order._

_But the man does not strike him. The gag comes back on, and he is pushed back into his corner. And somehow, left alone in a cold house in a foreign land, the unexpected disappointment that Khadgar sees in the man's eyes is worse._

 

A string of profanities roll from his tongue when Ragnar pushes into him. The old gods and the new look upon what they do with great distaste, but Ragnar only laughs. They aren't the names of his gods, and yet he understands.

Khadgar doesn't care. His head lolls forward; he is held in place by the support alone, left to fend for himself on his knees while Ragnar draws out and moves back in. A wetness of oil trickles down his thighs, where it mixes with beads of sweat. The home is no longer cold, nor quiet. They pant and moan, their sounds mingling in an ode to the ecstasy of the flesh. There is a rhythmic quality to their lovemaking—to this _experiment_ —that has Khadgar's lips run dry.

A sharp thrust leaves his senses buzzing. For once, he cries out. Ragnar moves harder in him in return, and bites at his shoulder. His fingers trace the tattoo on Khadgar's lower arm. “What does it mean?” he asks.

“I don't—” Khadgar pants.

“I could give you more, if you want.” Ragnar licks his neck and seems to savour the salty tang of it. His lips press against Khadgar's ear. “It looks like an eye. Odin gave up his eye in exchange for the ability to see and know everything.”

“It's not Odin's eye.”

“No,” laughs Ragnar. “But it is strangely fitting, is it not? The gift from the gods, with knowledge beyond my comprehension and the gift of magic, to wear an eye on his arm.”

Pleasure shoots through Khadgar's veins. “I am not a gift from your gods. If I am, your gods are cruel to keep me in a cage while they have first given me the desire to be free.”

Against the other things Khadgar desires, Ragnar stills in him. His mouth draws down Khadgar's spine. Then it is gone. Ragnar extracts himself. He leaves Khadgar's body hanging on the edge with a whimper. It is frustratingly unfair.

“You are free to do whatever you want,” whispers the man against him. “So do what you want.”

 

_Days pass before he is visited again. Someone else brings him his meals. A servant girl, most of the times, but sometimes it is a young man who proceeds to watch him with a curiosity that almost matches Ragnar's._

_It is not the same. Ragnar coveted answers. Friendship almost, unfathomable as that is. This man instead merely tries to figure out what is so special about the prisoner that serves no purpose._

_Once, it is the tall man with the hauntingly mad laugh. The one who knocked him out and made sure that this was Khadgar's new life. He gives Khadgar nothing but a vicious look and only grudgingly shoves the food in his direction. He gets the feeling that this man was never asked to bring him food and is here only to intimidate him. This one likes Khadgar as little as Khadgar likes him._

_The room is cold and empty without someone to talk to him._

_It is warmer when Khadgar finds Ragnar returned._

_Ragnar does not show himself, but Khadgar knows that he is being watched. He can feel the man's eyes on him when he shifts to find a better place. At first he does not know how to handle that. Soon however, it becomes a comfortable blanket. He falls asleep with a man he is starting to trust in his vicinity. He makes no qualms about winning back his trust; it was his own mistake to break it._

_One morning, he wakes to Ragnar crouching just out of reach. Khadgar can't look anywhere else. He tentatively inclines his head._

_Ragnar returns the gesture._

_They do not speak for as long as they stay like that. They watch each other, judging each other, and time passes like the ebb and the flow of the sea. Leisurely; immutably._

_Finally Ragnar leans over and undoes the gag. His hand remains over Khadgar's mouth this time, as loosely as he can, but still distrustful._

_After minutes, Khadgar whispers, “Thank you.”_

_“Surely you understand that there is no place to go,” says Ragnar. “You could kill any one of my people if you chose to. I can understand that you'd want to, but you are not going to survive the wild without help. This is your life now. It is not a bad one. So please, for your own sake, do not try to kill me again.”_

_“I never tried to kill you,” replies Khadgar. “What do you think of me? I'm not a savage.” Like you, it implies._

_The man raises a brow. He continues to be in close proximity. Khadgar is not sure whether that is because he wants to smother his words when he needs to or for other reasons. “Then what were you trying to do?”_

_Khadgar purses his lips. “Only enough damage to buy some time.”_

_Upon those words, confusingly, Ragnar grins and gives him his space._

 

The moment he sinks down, his hands braced on a muscled stomach while his legs give way on either side of him, Khadgar lets out a whimper.

This is new to him. To be fair, everything is new to him. He has not slept with anyone before, and to imagine that his first is a man from the far ends of the earth who has captured him and to whom he gives himself willingly is a strange realisation by itself. Many things are new, but this, as he straddles the other man and seats himself upon him, is something he has not imagined being possible.

Ragnar watches him with the fascination of a man who beholds divinity. His hand brushes Khadgar's side, but the touch is light. Whatever happens is for Khadgar to decide.

And he moves.

The feeling is overwhelming. Part of him wants to roll himself back under Ragnar's hands and just give in; for him to take control is one of the most intimate things he has experienced. He isn't sure whether he can cope, but soon his head falls back and he leans himself forward. It becomes natural. His search for more has him nipping at the other man's neck and his cheek, as he draws his pleasure from the delighted body beneath him.

“Use your magic,” Ragnar tells him.

Khadgar's eyes shoot up. He continues riding the man, but in his eyes shines confusion—laced from time and time with a bite on his lips or a breath escaped. “No.”

“Use it,” says Ragnar. “I want to see.”

“It's,” his body is building up energy already, “it's dangerous.”

“I trust you.”

Khadgar doesn't know what to say. Something intense washes over him, and he realises at that point that he will never be free. This man will always have a part of him. Whether he is an experiment or whether his life is forfeit in the morning does not matter. If he still has a soul, it bears the signature of two now.

Arcane energy gathers under his skin. Warm to the touch despite the icy glow, Khadgar can as much stop what is coming as he can stop his desire for more. The light draws into his eyes.

Under him, Ragnar watches without the slightest hint of fear. Whatever happens, it is the way the gods preordained it. He bears witness to the way Khadgar topples forward and continues to push himself back. Hands come up to support him while he falls apart.

When Khadgar comes, he sends out a shockwave of pure blue light that must rattle the village and the surrounding woods. Words fall from his lips, and a cocoon of energy envelops them. He is utterly wrecked.

Faintly he registers Ragnar rolling him onto his back; he feels the way Ragnar draws his own orgasm using his clenching, spent body. Khadgar smiles at him breathlessly. His eyes are bright and human, and full of so much life. He could do this every day.

Ragnar crashes their lips together. “Stay,” he begs.

 

_No feeling equates to the pleasure of hot water for a man who has not seen a bath in months._

_Khadgar does not mind the audience of one as he enjoys soaking up the heat. His cheeks are rosy, the tips of his hair clinging to his wet skin. He has lost some weight, he finds as he traces the sponge along his arms and his legs. When he rubs at the filthy skin in his neck, Ragnar's eyes follow the movement. And when he dips the sponge under, something dark replaces his amusement._

_But he has not had a bath for so long; as much as Khadgar is beginning to come to terms to the effect he has on the savage man with the insatiable—and rather relatable—thirst for knowledge, tonight he relishes only in the offer he has been given._

_“I'm not, you know,” he says. “You asked me many things about God, and you stole me from Christian lands. You never asked me if I was.”_

_“And you are not?”_

_Khadgar shakes his head. “I have lost my people twice. Your men took my second people from me. The first did not want me. They abandoned me when I was six. I don't remember where I am from, but I remember stories. Names. Cailleagh and Gruagagh. Like you, I have many gods.”_

_“Your gods must be powerful,” concedes Ragnar._

_“I doubt they are as powerful as yours,” smiles Khadgar kindly, placated by the heat and the feeling of wanting to sink into the water to never come out, “or you would not have conquered us.”_

_Ragnar smirks. “I have not conquered all of you.”_

_Khadgar hums. “And it frustrates you.” He knows he is testing the waters. He has been given back his speech, and now a bath. He still has not had to work a day. This is not how spoils of war are treated. “What am I to you?” he asks. “A trophy? A wielder of magic that you believe you have tamed? Or is it simply that when I have told you enough, you will conquer me after all?” The last comes out shaky._

_“You ask a lot of questions.”_

_“I have a lot of catching up to do.”_

_Ragnar gets up to his feet and saunters to the tub. He leans his weight on the edge, then leans forward. “Do you ever shut up?” he asks._

_“Do you want me to?” asks Khadgar._


End file.
